Spending an annual week of skiing holidays with your family is a sort of national tradition in Switzerland. For the second time, we chose the small, family-friendly skiing area of Stoos, high above Lake Lucerne in Central Switzerland.

During our first stay almost three years ago, when our children were very young (3 and 1,5 years), we decided on a 2-bed apartment at Swiss Holiday Park (website in German only), a four-star holiday and leisure resort situated in the small town of Morschach in the Canton of Schwyz, above Lake Lucerne with a hotel, holiday apartments, several restaurants, a wellness and spa complex, a large adventure pool, a wide range of sports options, a children’s club and playroom, a children’s ski lift, a farm with animals and pony riding etc. Briefly: the resort offers everything that a family with children needs for every weather situation. Thanks to the perfect mountain weather on all days except one we didn’t really have to exploit the resort.

Instead, we took the aerial cableway to the actual skiing area Stoos (1,300 m above sea level). It’s a relatively small, but very nice and reasonably priced ski resort. As my wife Corina and I had to take turns skiing and watching the children anyway, the 35 km of slopes were more than enough. Despite the not so high altitude of the skiing area and the difficult overall snow situation in this winter, the snow and slope conditions were excellent. Moreover, the views from the mountain tops (1,935 m above sea level) into the Alps and down on Lake Lucerne were just breathtaking (see photos). The only disadvantage of the Stoos ski resort is the limited capacity of the cable car from Morschach which led to waiting times of more than 30 minutes in the mornings and afternoons. As you may know or guess, 30 minutes are longer with small children than without:-) A funicular railway with much higher capacity takes skiers up to the mountain from Schwyz – but this wasn’t an option for us due to the location of our resort.

For our second visit over New Year 2020 we chose the 4-star Seminar- und Wellnesshotel Stoos located directly in the car-free mountain village of Stoss, a few minutes walk from the ski lifts. It is a very nice – although rather expensive over the holidays – hotel with spacious rooms and all amenities such as nice restaurant and bar, SPA, heated outdoor Jacuzzi, children’s playroom etc. The surprising highlight was the morning pick-up service by horse-drawn carriage for children attending the ski school!

All in all, both times we spent a wonderful week of precious family time, sporting activity, sunbeams and alpine air.

Travel period: This blog post was written after our first stay from 12 – 19 February 2017 and updated after our second trip from 29 December 2019 – 3 January 2020. The first time we stayed in an apartment at Swiss Holiday Park in the village of Morschach, the second time at the Seminar- und Wellnesshotel Stoos directly in the skiing area (both recommended).

Read next: Uri, an unknown gem in the Swiss Alps

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